Gillingham begin their League Two campaign on Saturday with a trip to face Accrington Stanley. KSN caught up with midfielder Jonny Williams this week to look ahead… 

“We’re all excited as it’s always an exciting time at the start of the season,” Williams told us. “Everyone is on a level playing field and everyone wants to get off to a good start.”

“Pre-season is part and parcel of football, but as footballers you want to be playing for three points on a Saturday, and it can’t come quick enough.”

“For sure I still get the same butterflies that I did as a youngster – you’re always excited to get off to a good start. In the last couple of seasons that I have been here we’ve started the season well and if we can do that again, it will be great.”

“But we all know that we will have to be a bit more consistent that the last couple of seasons when we’ve had flying starts.” 

“The real disappointing thing about last season was the run in the middle when we went winless for so long.”

“Can’t help but think that if we’d have got two or three wins in that run, we wouldn’t have been that far off where we wanted to be.”

“Whichever way you look at it, we simply were not good enough last year – we all knew/know that – I think the finish to the season probably came as perfect timing for us in terms of trying to connect with the players, the staff, the fans and having some belief back in the dressing room that we are good enough to compete… it was great to finish unbeaten. but it was a poor season overall.” 

“Just don’t ask me how tight it’s going to be this year as it really is far too early to call.”

“People have their favourites, but it is League Two at the end of the day and you win games in lots of different areas – it is so hard to call and there are no easy games!”

“It’s all about being the most resilient and who can be the most consistent throughout the season. We know we must be better than last season for sure!”

“The main thing is that we lose games, and it is all about how you respond – you can’t go ten games or more without a win which is what we did last year, but I really don’t think that will be the case this year.”

“The belief is there to bounce back straight away – there is more of a togetherness being instilled from the manager that when things do go wrong, it’s how about how we respond, whether it’s giving the ball away on the pitch or losing the game, it’s all about your next action and that is massive for the group!” 

“I think that it’s going to be all about being together this season, not just as a group, but fans, staff, players – everyone involved – it’s about pulling everyone together and getting into the right position.”  

Looking ahead to Saturday, Williams recalled, “Every time that we have played at Accrington and it’s always a tough, tough ground and they are always a difficult team to beat.”

“We mustn’t forget that we have an ongoing unbeaten run going from the end of last season and we are all looking to carry that on at the weekend.”

“We are confident that we can go there and put in a performance to win – we are always backed tremendously well on the green which yet again will be huge for us and once again, hopefully we can put in a performance that they can be proud of to send them home happy!”